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And it would in turn be worth noting that the creators of reddit had a philosophical and political commitment to free speech that drove their light-touch approa

And it would in turn be worth noting that the creators of reddit had a philosophical and political commitment to free speech that drove their light-touch approach to moderation. It's not like the existence of that subreddit is evidence of an endorsement on their part.

roncesvalles 3y ago
Lascivious pictures of clothed children count as CSAM in many jurisdictions. Free speech is fine but did they not have lawyers until 2015?
- WindyLakeReturn 3y ago
  At the time reddit was not some unknown back corner of the internet and had already begun working with law enforcement to enforce anti-CSAM laws due to material being treaded in private messages and private subreddits. That it took a media exposure take down the specific subreddit indicated that it was likely on the legal side of the line, through it was going close enough to the line to make others uncomfortable. If the material was actually illegal, wouldn't it have made reddit the largest clear-net site containing CSAM? In such a case, I find it hard to conceive that media exposure and not legal actions is why led to it shutting down, and with no admins being arrested it seems the most reasonable assumption left is that it was on the technically legal side. This would likely be like the use of underage subjects in nudist art, painted, drawn, or photographed. Such art is generally not considered pornographic and are legally protected, and some even displayed in museums and the like, yet websites will still ban the material to not have any relationship to it and to not have users trying to push the boundary. I'm speaking to the extent that rules are enforced, many websites have issues with enforcing rules in general due to the amount of user generated content being much larger than the amount of moderation available, so there will be something slipping through moderation from time to time.
  - pr0zac 3y ago
    I mean yeah all that, but on the other hand, the subreddit was literally called r/jailbait.
- Zak 3y ago
  They didn't have image or video hosting at the time, just links and comments. Their legal exposure was pretty limited.
- tredre3 3y ago
  Can you give us one example of a jurisdiction where a photo of a teenager in bikini would count as CSAM?
  - throwaway17_17 3y ago
    * Note: This IS NOT Legal Advice * Most states in the US could use a photo of a teenager in a bikini as enough 'evidence' to bring charges of Possession of Pornography involving a Juvenile, depending on what the actual photo depicts. Whether the contents of the image could be found to substantiate a conviction for the charge would be a trial/appeals issue. Nudity is not required for an image to be considered CSAM in most US states (or at the federal level), there are also Federal precedents that make cartoon depictions of under-aged characters count as CSAM.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- Mordisquitos 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dymk 3y ago
    No. CP is a term used by 4chan and people unfamiliar with the topic. The detection, prevention, and enforcement community uses the term CSAM.
    - pseudalopex 3y ago
      Lawyers and courts say child pornography because laws are not restricted to sexual abuse material. Drawn child pornography is illegal in many places for example.
      - hattmall 3y ago
        How do they determine the age of a person depicted in a drawing?
        pseudalopex 3y ago
        Appearing under a certain age is enough.
        numpad0 3y ago
        It’s a witch hunt. Age doesn’t matter. They might say it’s not, it is.
    - philjohn 3y ago
      For important reasons. Also why "revenge porn" is now referred to as non-consensual intimate imagery.
    - bamfly 3y ago
      It's the only term I'd ever seen for it, in any context, until the last couple years. And I'm not a 4channer. Pretty sure it's just another euphemism-treadmill thing. (not that I mind in this case, I think the new term's fine, and certainly not worth fighting over)
- Quarrelsome 3y ago
  I thought part of the reason the US is so blessed with a thriving startup community is the light-touch the law has towards its startups. For example; didn't the billion dollar acquisition YouTube gain a lot of its initial growth through copyright infringement?
- Ajedi32 3y ago
  This is partly why I now prefer the term "free exchange of ideas" over "freedom of speech". I believe it more closely captures the essence of what makes free speech worth protecting, while also conveniently excluding stuff like this (among other things, like spam or antisocial behavior).
  - FormerBandmate 3y ago
    Freedom of speech is a legal concept that clearly doesn't cover CSAM. Free speech is a principle but it also doesn't cover CSAM. Fire in a crowded theater doesn't actually work as a legal defense but obscenity does
    - Ajedi32 3y ago
      That's another reason I prefer the term "free exchange of ideas"; by using different wording it helps avoid the confusion created by people conflating the general principal of such freedoms with any specific legal provisions that exist in the U.S. constitution. (Though I agree in this case my wording is in agreement with how the courts define "freedom of speech" in practice.)
    - thakoppno 3y ago
      > Fire in a crowded theater doesn't actually work as a legal defense It may actually be a defense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
      - lukifer 3y ago
        As discussed ITA, that case was later overturned; and it’s worth remembering that its origin was as an analogy to justify criminalizing pamphleteering against the draft [0] (one could not imagine a more salient example of “political speech”) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
  - ilyt 3y ago
    Well, it's freedom of speech, not freedom of pics
scubbo 3y ago
I mean, define "endorsement". Permitting something to exist when you have the power to do otherwise is a mild form of endorsement. A commitment to free speech is, to an extent, an endorsement of all the speech that results.
- capableweb 3y ago
  > A commitment to free speech is, to an extent, an endorsement of all the speech that results. Absolutely not. I'd argue that anyone should be free to talk with others about their opinion, but that doesn't mean I agree with that opinion. And letting then speak without shutting them down doesn't mean I agree either, just means I agree that they should be able to speak freely. What kind of dystopian viewpoint is that? You go around stopping everyone from saying stuff you disagree with?
  - foogazi 3y ago
    > I'd argue that anyone should be free to talk with others about their opinion, but that doesn't mean I agree with that opinion. Sure, when “talking” is done via sound waves or someone else’s medium it’s different But if you have free-speech parties at your place and people spray paint messages on your house then you are now “hosting” You decide which words you leave or paint over
    - welshwelsh 3y ago
      Platforms like reddit are in no way similar to personal property like a house that you live in. A better analogy would be, imagine you rent your house to someone else. You make a rule that tenants may display political messages in their windows, but only for one political party. That would be illegal. You can prohibit all signs if you want, but specifically choosing what signs someone gets to display violates their first amendment rights and could trigger a fair housing lawsuit. It doesn't matter that you aren't the government and that you own the property.
      - Golden_Wind123 3y ago
cmh89 3y ago
>And it would in turn be worth noting that the creators of reddit had a philosophical and political commitment to free speech that drove their light-touch approach to moderation That's nonsense. The Sears debacle showed that reddits leadership team was fine with deleting posts if it was going to cost them money to not delete them. That 'political commitment to free speech' sure disappeared quickly when r/jailbait and u/violetacrez hit the main stream media. spez was fine with hosting a community of child predators because it was one of the most popular subs. It was the top recommended result when you searched for reddit on google. You can support free speech without actively providing a community for predators
- nicolas_t 3y ago
  What was the Sears debacle?
  - cmh89 3y ago
    https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9clji/where_did_my_post_about_searscoms_urlhackable/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9clji/where_did_... reddit used to be owned by Conde Nast. Sears got upset about a post and complained to Conde Nast, who then told spez to take it down. If you have a political commitment to 'free speech' that folds if you might have to face some consequences for defending it, you don't have that strong of a commitment in my opinion. Certainly not strong enough to justify hosting a community of child predators
  - paradox460 3y ago
    Sears had an XSS injection issue, where you could change their breadcrumbs by manipulating the URLs. Some redditors changed and shared a link to a grill as a "Body part roaster" and had fun. Sears found out and got mad https://www.techdirt.com/2009/08/21/reddit-sears-grills-that-cook-babies-and-the-streisand-effect/ https://www.techdirt.com/2009/08/21/reddit-sears-grills-that...
moomin 3y ago
Many people have said this better than me, but there are plenty of people who have thought they can do better than the current status-quo regarding user-generated content on the internet. They end up conforming or losing money. There’s no one reason for this. You try to run a website visible to the world, you’re gonna be subject to a world full of reasons.
rchaud 3y ago
> a philosophical and political commitment to free speech Surely this is a meme by now? Any CEO that has ever said this about a website they control is just pandering to the crowd. Musk's Twitter has complied with more government takedown requests than the previous regime had.
- callalex 3y ago
  It is now, but it was very different at the time. The old guard of the internet supporting absolute freedom of speech didn’t used to be associated with Nazis. Some good examples that still exists today are the Electronic Frontier Foundation and to some extent the American Civil Liberties Union.
- AnonCoward42 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - eropple 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - AnonCoward42 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - djcannabiz 3y ago
    Would you mind explaining what #Stolzmonat means or what is behind it? I see that it is german for pride month. Is it meant to be ironic or something like that?
    - johnysmith67 3y ago
      It is pointing out the degeneracy that plagues society in a lighthearted manner, by using the German flag, which could easily be interpreted as a new iteration of the gay pride flag to the untrained eye
    - 3y ago
Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago
>It's not like the existence of that subreddit is evidence of an endorsement on their part. It is though. 230 be damned. These were not small or hidden communities. They were frequently on the front page. Generally, and especially in this case silence is violence. The optics of that sub and the frequenters thereof are terrible. Do you want to try and justify their inaction further or concede this point? It should have never been allowed in the first place. Spez/Reddit at al should continue to be shamed for their long-standing tacit approval of these communities. Earning respectability requires public contrition for bad decisions that affect the public and non participants. As is typical, the communities were only shuttered when the victims cries grew loud enough to affect their brand image. Cf fph, wpd, fappening, t_d, Boston bomber fiasco, all the racist subs, and countless other controversies that spez/Reddit fumbled. Reddit deserves to close. The management team is evidently not competent or mature enough for the task and has repeatedly proven that their inability to learn from their mistakes and failure to become the proactive stewards needed will result in preventable harm to people who do not even use the platform.
wahnfrieden 3y ago
dionidium, dedicated defender of promoted jailbait access and hosting
freejazz 3y ago
> light-touch approach to moderation Heh. So what did they moderate? things besides jailbait? How free!
wpietri 3y ago
Hi! I've done a bunch of trust and safety work and I see this trope a fair bit. Please help me understand what the difference is between, say, platforming racist harassment because of a "political commitment to free speech" and platforming racist harassment because you just kinda like racist harassment? I get that it might be different in the heads of the people who have worked very hard to create those platforms. I'm just not seeing any different in its effects on the world or on the targets of the racial harassment.
- jnky 3y ago
  > Please help me understand what the difference is between, say, platforming racist harassment because of a "political commitment to free speech" and platforming racist harassment because you just kinda like racist harassment? The difference is intent. Intent matters. Intent is the difference between murder and manslaughter, or between a conspiracy and mere speech.
  - wpietri 3y ago
    Intent matters sometimes. To some people. But here, in either case the intent is to enable terrible people to, e.g., shout the n-word at people. So I don't see much of a difference in those terms.
    - redeeman 3y ago
      how about this example: twitter would silence and deplatform some guy using the oh so terrible "n-word" ("because sticks and stones may..." is not a thing anymore). Now because this person is deplatformed, I cannot find his "hatespeech" when doing a quick background check, so I hire him in my company as responsible for recruiting. Now he makes sure no "n-words" get employed. big win? whomever votes to silence the guy gets to judge.
      - wpietri 3y ago
        If the only possible way you can catch a bigoted manager is by hoping that he spent a lot of time hurling racial abuse at Black people under his own name, then I think you really need to work on your management processes.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
> the creators of reddit had a philosophical and political commitment to free speech that drove their light-touch approach to moderation The notion that reddit ever was a bastion of free speech is absurd. They didn't "light touch" on upskirt, revenge, and kiddy porn because of "philosophical and political commitment to free speech", they did it because they didn't want to accept any more responsibility for content than they absolutely had to, and that's because it is not financially viable to moderate large communities using paid labor. That is why you see so many social media companies pushing against rules for online content; not because they're champions of free speech. If it were about "a commitment to free speech", they wouldn't allow completely unaccountable and anonymous members to delete content, silently mute users, and ban users....including employing automatic tools that would ban people preemptively based on subreddits they posted in, or automated tools for powermods to ban someone across all the subreddits they moderated. If you pissed off a powermod, your account could end up getting banned from nearly all the major, common subreddits - not just from theirs, but they'd communicate in private channels to other powermods that they wanted someone to be banned elsewhere. Oh, and they were happy to moderate, severely, anyone who revealed any personal details about a reddit user. Which conveniently helps protect people doing stuff like upskirting and posting revenge porn. "philosophical and political commitment to free speech", my ass.

roncesvalles 3y ago

Lascivious pictures of clothed children count as CSAM in many jurisdictions. Free speech is fine but did they not have lawyers until 2015?

WindyLakeReturn 3y ago
At the time reddit was not some unknown back corner of the internet and had already begun working with law enforcement to enforce anti-CSAM laws due to material being treaded in private messages and private subreddits. That it took a media exposure take down the specific subreddit indicated that it was likely on the legal side of the line, through it was going close enough to the line to make others uncomfortable. If the material was actually illegal, wouldn't it have made reddit the largest clear-net site containing CSAM? In such a case, I find it hard to conceive that media exposure and not legal actions is why led to it shutting down, and with no admins being arrested it seems the most reasonable assumption left is that it was on the technically legal side. This would likely be like the use of underage subjects in nudist art, painted, drawn, or photographed. Such art is generally not considered pornographic and are legally protected, and some even displayed in museums and the like, yet websites will still ban the material to not have any relationship to it and to not have users trying to push the boundary. I'm speaking to the extent that rules are enforced, many websites have issues with enforcing rules in general due to the amount of user generated content being much larger than the amount of moderation available, so there will be something slipping through moderation from time to time.
- pr0zac 3y ago
  I mean yeah all that, but on the other hand, the subreddit was literally called r/jailbait.
Zak 3y ago
They didn't have image or video hosting at the time, just links and comments. Their legal exposure was pretty limited.
tredre3 3y ago
Can you give us one example of a jurisdiction where a photo of a teenager in bikini would count as CSAM?
- throwaway17_17 3y ago
  * Note: This IS NOT Legal Advice * Most states in the US could use a photo of a teenager in a bikini as enough 'evidence' to bring charges of Possession of Pornography involving a Juvenile, depending on what the actual photo depicts. Whether the contents of the image could be found to substantiate a conviction for the charge would be a trial/appeals issue. Nudity is not required for an image to be considered CSAM in most US states (or at the federal level), there are also Federal precedents that make cartoon depictions of under-aged characters count as CSAM.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Mordisquitos 3y ago
[flagged]
- dymk 3y ago
  No. CP is a term used by 4chan and people unfamiliar with the topic. The detection, prevention, and enforcement community uses the term CSAM.
  - pseudalopex 3y ago
    Lawyers and courts say child pornography because laws are not restricted to sexual abuse material. Drawn child pornography is illegal in many places for example.
    - hattmall 3y ago
      How do they determine the age of a person depicted in a drawing?
      - pseudalopex 3y ago
        Appearing under a certain age is enough.
      - numpad0 3y ago
        It’s a witch hunt. Age doesn’t matter. They might say it’s not, it is.
  - philjohn 3y ago
    For important reasons. Also why "revenge porn" is now referred to as non-consensual intimate imagery.
  - bamfly 3y ago
    It's the only term I'd ever seen for it, in any context, until the last couple years. And I'm not a 4channer. Pretty sure it's just another euphemism-treadmill thing. (not that I mind in this case, I think the new term's fine, and certainly not worth fighting over)
Quarrelsome 3y ago
I thought part of the reason the US is so blessed with a thriving startup community is the light-touch the law has towards its startups. For example; didn't the billion dollar acquisition YouTube gain a lot of its initial growth through copyright infringement?
Ajedi32 3y ago
This is partly why I now prefer the term "free exchange of ideas" over "freedom of speech". I believe it more closely captures the essence of what makes free speech worth protecting, while also conveniently excluding stuff like this (among other things, like spam or antisocial behavior).
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  Freedom of speech is a legal concept that clearly doesn't cover CSAM. Free speech is a principle but it also doesn't cover CSAM. Fire in a crowded theater doesn't actually work as a legal defense but obscenity does
  - Ajedi32 3y ago
    That's another reason I prefer the term "free exchange of ideas"; by using different wording it helps avoid the confusion created by people conflating the general principal of such freedoms with any specific legal provisions that exist in the U.S. constitution. (Though I agree in this case my wording is in agreement with how the courts define "freedom of speech" in practice.)
  - thakoppno 3y ago
    > Fire in a crowded theater doesn't actually work as a legal defense It may actually be a defense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
    - lukifer 3y ago
      As discussed ITA, that case was later overturned; and it’s worth remembering that its origin was as an analogy to justify criminalizing pamphleteering against the draft [0] (one could not imagine a more salient example of “political speech”) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
- ilyt 3y ago
  Well, it's freedom of speech, not freedom of pics

scubbo 3y ago

I mean, define "endorsement". Permitting something to exist when you have the power to do otherwise is a mild form of endorsement. A commitment to free speech is, to an extent, an endorsement of all the speech that results.

capableweb 3y ago
> A commitment to free speech is, to an extent, an endorsement of all the speech that results. Absolutely not. I'd argue that anyone should be free to talk with others about their opinion, but that doesn't mean I agree with that opinion. And letting then speak without shutting them down doesn't mean I agree either, just means I agree that they should be able to speak freely. What kind of dystopian viewpoint is that? You go around stopping everyone from saying stuff you disagree with?
- foogazi 3y ago
  > I'd argue that anyone should be free to talk with others about their opinion, but that doesn't mean I agree with that opinion. Sure, when “talking” is done via sound waves or someone else’s medium it’s different But if you have free-speech parties at your place and people spray paint messages on your house then you are now “hosting” You decide which words you leave or paint over
  - welshwelsh 3y ago
    Platforms like reddit are in no way similar to personal property like a house that you live in. A better analogy would be, imagine you rent your house to someone else. You make a rule that tenants may display political messages in their windows, but only for one political party. That would be illegal. You can prohibit all signs if you want, but specifically choosing what signs someone gets to display violates their first amendment rights and could trigger a fair housing lawsuit. It doesn't matter that you aren't the government and that you own the property.
    - Golden_Wind123 3y ago

cmh89 3y ago

>And it would in turn be worth noting that the creators of reddit had a philosophical and political commitment to free speech that drove their light-touch approach to moderation That's nonsense. The Sears debacle showed that reddits leadership team was fine with deleting posts if it was going to cost them money to not delete them. That 'political commitment to free speech' sure disappeared quickly when r/jailbait and u/violetacrez hit the main stream media. spez was fine with hosting a community of child predators because it was one of the most popular subs. It was the top recommended result when you searched for reddit on google. You can support free speech without actively providing a community for predators

nicolas_t 3y ago
What was the Sears debacle?
- cmh89 3y ago
  https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9clji/where_did_my_post_about_searscoms_urlhackable/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9clji/where_did_... reddit used to be owned by Conde Nast. Sears got upset about a post and complained to Conde Nast, who then told spez to take it down. If you have a political commitment to 'free speech' that folds if you might have to face some consequences for defending it, you don't have that strong of a commitment in my opinion. Certainly not strong enough to justify hosting a community of child predators
- paradox460 3y ago
  Sears had an XSS injection issue, where you could change their breadcrumbs by manipulating the URLs. Some redditors changed and shared a link to a grill as a "Body part roaster" and had fun. Sears found out and got mad https://www.techdirt.com/2009/08/21/reddit-sears-grills-that-cook-babies-and-the-streisand-effect/ https://www.techdirt.com/2009/08/21/reddit-sears-grills-that...

moomin 3y ago

Many people have said this better than me, but there are plenty of people who have thought they can do better than the current status-quo regarding user-generated content on the internet. They end up conforming or losing money. There’s no one reason for this. You try to run a website visible to the world, you’re gonna be subject to a world full of reasons.

rchaud 3y ago

> a philosophical and political commitment to free speech Surely this is a meme by now? Any CEO that has ever said this about a website they control is just pandering to the crowd. Musk's Twitter has complied with more government takedown requests than the previous regime had.

callalex 3y ago
It is now, but it was very different at the time. The old guard of the internet supporting absolute freedom of speech didn’t used to be associated with Nazis. Some good examples that still exists today are the Electronic Frontier Foundation and to some extent the American Civil Liberties Union.
AnonCoward42 3y ago
[flagged]
- eropple 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - AnonCoward42 3y ago
    [flagged]
- djcannabiz 3y ago
  Would you mind explaining what #Stolzmonat means or what is behind it? I see that it is german for pride month. Is it meant to be ironic or something like that?
  - johnysmith67 3y ago
    It is pointing out the degeneracy that plagues society in a lighthearted manner, by using the German flag, which could easily be interpreted as a new iteration of the gay pride flag to the untrained eye
  - 3y ago

Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago

>It's not like the existence of that subreddit is evidence of an endorsement on their part. It is though. 230 be damned. These were not small or hidden communities. They were frequently on the front page. Generally, and especially in this case silence is violence. The optics of that sub and the frequenters thereof are terrible. Do you want to try and justify their inaction further or concede this point? It should have never been allowed in the first place. Spez/Reddit at al should continue to be shamed for their long-standing tacit approval of these communities. Earning respectability requires public contrition for bad decisions that affect the public and non participants. As is typical, the communities were only shuttered when the victims cries grew loud enough to affect their brand image. Cf fph, wpd, fappening, t_d, Boston bomber fiasco, all the racist subs, and countless other controversies that spez/Reddit fumbled. Reddit deserves to close. The management team is evidently not competent or mature enough for the task and has repeatedly proven that their inability to learn from their mistakes and failure to become the proactive stewards needed will result in preventable harm to people who do not even use the platform.

wahnfrieden 3y ago

dionidium, dedicated defender of promoted jailbait access and hosting

freejazz 3y ago

> light-touch approach to moderation Heh. So what did they moderate? things besides jailbait? How free!

wpietri 3y ago

Hi! I've done a bunch of trust and safety work and I see this trope a fair bit. Please help me understand what the difference is between, say, platforming racist harassment because of a "political commitment to free speech" and platforming racist harassment because you just kinda like racist harassment? I get that it might be different in the heads of the people who have worked very hard to create those platforms. I'm just not seeing any different in its effects on the world or on the targets of the racial harassment.

jnky 3y ago
> Please help me understand what the difference is between, say, platforming racist harassment because of a "political commitment to free speech" and platforming racist harassment because you just kinda like racist harassment? The difference is intent. Intent matters. Intent is the difference between murder and manslaughter, or between a conspiracy and mere speech.
- wpietri 3y ago
  Intent matters sometimes. To some people. But here, in either case the intent is to enable terrible people to, e.g., shout the n-word at people. So I don't see much of a difference in those terms.
  - redeeman 3y ago
    how about this example: twitter would silence and deplatform some guy using the oh so terrible "n-word" ("because sticks and stones may..." is not a thing anymore). Now because this person is deplatformed, I cannot find his "hatespeech" when doing a quick background check, so I hire him in my company as responsible for recruiting. Now he makes sure no "n-words" get employed. big win? whomever votes to silence the guy gets to judge.
    - wpietri 3y ago
      If the only possible way you can catch a bigoted manager is by hoping that he spent a lot of time hurling racial abuse at Black people under his own name, then I think you really need to work on your management processes.

KennyBlanken 3y ago

> the creators of reddit had a philosophical and political commitment to free speech that drove their light-touch approach to moderation The notion that reddit ever was a bastion of free speech is absurd. They didn't "light touch" on upskirt, revenge, and kiddy porn because of "philosophical and political commitment to free speech", they did it because they didn't want to accept any more responsibility for content than they absolutely had to, and that's because it is not financially viable to moderate large communities using paid labor. That is why you see so many social media companies pushing against rules for online content; not because they're champions of free speech. If it were about "a commitment to free speech", they wouldn't allow completely unaccountable and anonymous members to delete content, silently mute users, and ban users....including employing automatic tools that would ban people preemptively based on subreddits they posted in, or automated tools for powermods to ban someone across all the subreddits they moderated. If you pissed off a powermod, your account could end up getting banned from nearly all the major, common subreddits - not just from theirs, but they'd communicate in private channels to other powermods that they wanted someone to be banned elsewhere. Oh, and they were happy to moderate, severely, anyone who revealed any personal details about a reddit user. Which conveniently helps protect people doing stuff like upskirting and posting revenge porn. "philosophical and political commitment to free speech", my ass.